Maidenhood in the Greco-Roman World

Maidenhood in the Greco-Roman World offers the first comprehensive social history of maidenhood in the Graeco-Roman world, spanning the fifth century BC to the fourth century AD. Through an unprecedented comparative synthesis of archaeological case studies, epigraphic evidence, iconography, and literary sources, it explores how young women were perceived, commemorated, and socially constructed in death. At its core are forty-two carefully selected burial case studies from Greece, Italy, and Egypt. Rather than attempting an exhaustive catalogue, the book presents contextualised, well-excavated examples, combining analysis of grave goods, skeletal remains, and funerary assemblages with wider regional comparisons. These burials are read alongside funerary art, inscriptions, and ancient medical, legal, and literary texts to reconstruct the social meanings attached to maidenhood.

The study argues that funerary contexts do not simply reveal the lives of girls, but the social gaze cast upon them, including expectations surrounding beauty, skills, piety, and marriage. By bringing together material and textual evidence across different regions and periods, the book highlights both shared traditions and local adaptations in commemorating girls who died before marriage.

In doing so, it illuminates a crucial yet understudied transitional stage of life and demonstrates the centrality of maidenhood in Graeco-Roman social imagination.